Colorado’s state House and Senate Republicans heard this week from an official with a conservative group that has has been under fire from critics who say it lets big corporations write legislative policies.

“We’ve been around for 40 years and somehow they’ve just uncovered the boogeyman,” Williams said. “The ALEC the left is attacking is not the ALEC I belonging to.”

But he said he thought it was a good thing that ALEC is returning to its original mission, which was intended to bring conservative economic policies to state and local governments. ALEC recently disbanded its Public Safety and Elections Task Force, a group whose gun legislation has been in the public eye since the shooting of Trayvon Martin in Florida.

Williams also talked about the book he helped author, “Rich States, Poor States,” which looks at states’ fiscal policies.

ALEC has been under scrutiny since the the Center for Media and Democracy reviewed bills and resolutions proposed by the the group and discovered its link with corporations. The group created the website, ALEC Exposed, to publicize ALEC’s work.

“These bills and resolutions reach into almost every area of American life: worker and consumer rights, education, the rights of Americans injured or killed by corporations, taxes, health care, immigration, and the quality of the air we breathe and the water we drink,” according to its website. “Only by seeing the depth and breadth and language of the bills can one fully understand the power and sweep of corporate influence behind the scenes on bills affecting the rights and future of every American in every single state.”

Coca-Cola, Kraft Foods, and Pepsi Co., pulled out of ALEC after complaints about the group’s corporate partners, particularly after the Martin shooting, according to a story in the Washington Post on “How ALEC became a political liability.”

In Colorado, lawmakers who are members have never been secretive about it, often mentioning they were headed to an ALEC convention or they learned of a bill idea at an ALEC event.

“I don’t see any problem with it,” said Sen. Scott Renfroe, R-Greeley.

“But as we focus on Stand Your Ground laws, we shouldn’t lose sight of the breadth of ALEC’s damage around the country. In fact, some of the wider harm can be found in other parts of this very statute. This law does not just protect perpetrators. It is also a direct assault on crime victims themselves.”…

“The problem with these laws is not only that they allow wrongdoers to escape accountability for what they do. They also discriminate on the basis of race, gender, age and income, issues not unlike those raised by the Travyon Martin case itself. For example, some ALEC bills target certain kinds of jury awards, specifically those that compensate for “non-economic” injuries like permanent disability, loss of a woman’s reproductive system, disfigurement, trauma, loss of a limb or blindness”…
“University of Buffalo law professor Lucinda Finley, who has written extensively about jury verdicts, found that: “Reproductive or sexual harm caused by drugs and medical devices has a highly disproportionate impact on women, because far more drugs and devices have been devised to control women’s fertility or bodily functions associated with sex and childbearing than have been devised for men.” History shows that many such drugs and devices were made safer only after women and their families filed lawsuits against those responsible. Immunizing the pharmaceutical industry means that women will no longer have any recourse. The same can certainly be said for the increasingly medicine-dependent senior citizen population.
These under-the-radar liability issues may not be garnering the same kind of public attention as some other ALEC priorities. But the concerns they raise are just as poignant. And they put at risk not only the rights of Trayvon Martin’s family but also those of every person living in this country.”

Just wanted to remove what tasted to me like sugar coating. Thanks, -BM

Caveman

There are 101 groups urging a large role for state government in our lives for every “conservative” organization such as ALEC. If I were to start naming the various “public interest” lobbies, the fronts for other bodies of government, the so-called charities wholly dependent on government funding, the unions, the environmental groups, the farmers, the various chambers of commerce and “economic development” agencies, the women’s organizations, the veterans’ groups, even the Boy Scouts and the Big Brothers/Sisters–they are all there with their hands out, ready and willing to receive favors from their friends in the state legislature–the list I’m afraid would exceed the word limit for comments.

Yet, we have such angst being expressed over just *one* moderately right organization whose prime focus, as stated on their web site, is “to advance the fundamental principles of free-market enterprise, limited government, and federalism at the state level.”

Where is you sense of proportion? Of balance? You’d think this organization was a threat to democracy or something, when all they are trying to do is propose legislation to make government more efficient (and therefore less costly!). I welcome such a group at the state capitol, and so should you.

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100000988313988 Glen Shue

ALEC not only proposes ideas for legislation, they write it for the state or federal to enact!!!

Dillard Jenkins

Is that the reason you call yourself caveman?

Boomer49

Too bad yer mama drank so much jest afor ya was born.

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100000988313988 Glen Shue

What should be shown is the purpose of ALEC’s ‘suggestions’. They seem to favor and benefit corporations, industry desires, etc.ahead of any concern for real people. In spite of the opinion of the S. Court, corporations are NOT people; they are simply paper.

http://www.facebook.com/people/Jean-Mcmahon/1044297144 Jean Mcmahon

Mentally limited lawmakers just ask ALEC what to do: Too bad life on the Planet:
The American Legislative Exchange Council
(ALEC), a conservative policy group, has helped state lawmakers craft
measures aimed at curtailing U.S. EPA air pollution rules, repealing cap
and trade and teaching climate skepticism in schools, among many other
things.

A future target could be renewable energy mandates, which are on the books in more than half of U.S. states.

“I expect the issue to be discussed at one of our upcoming task force
meetings,” Todd Wynn of ALEC told InsideClimate News. “Discussions
within the task force can, and do, lead to the development of ALEC model
bills.” Wynn directs the council’s Energy, Environment and Agriculture task force.

Anonymous

The truly mentally limited lawmakers are being led around by their noses by MoveOn, People for the American way, NARAL and the dozens of other liberal groups that have been doing this far longer than ALEC

Boomer49

yeah…they need to be a sac lickin’ Koch ho like the reTHUGlicans that ignore the Constitution and swear allegiance to Grover Norquist.

Anonymous

Sounds like the typical mentality of an 0bama supporter. Try again when you graduate middle school.

Boomer49

…just wonderin’, do the Kochs and Norquist provide knee pads for their pet luddites?

Anonymous

If they do they probably get them from the same supplier Soros and Hoffa use.

theolddog

Sunlight is the best disinfectant, and it will work here as well.

ALEC’s supporters will scuttle away from the light like raoches when the cupboard door is opened.

Lobbying groups have been writing laws for lawmakers for generations. Our elected officials don’t know enough to write those laws themselves. Does anyone really think members of Congress wrote the Obamacare law?

Anonymous

I agree with you on that.
Lobbyists have been written about and scorned since the first session of the US Congress. They’re still here.

Lynn Bartels thinks politics is like sports but without the big salaries and protective cups. The Washington Post's "The Fix" blog has named her one of Colorado's best political reporters and tweeters.

Joey Bunch has been a reporter for 28 years, including the last 12 at The Denver Post. For various newspapers he has covered the environment, water issues, politics, civil rights, sports and the casino industry.